


i recollect a night of broken clouds

by wolfstarheart



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Moving In Together, Oneshot, Post-Sacrifice Arcadia Bay Ending, Sacrifice Arcadia Bay Ending, hello i love pricefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 03:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13989249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfstarheart/pseuds/wolfstarheart
Summary: Max and Chloe move in together. Things are, somehow, kinda good. (Oneshot)





	i recollect a night of broken clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from The Star-splitter by Robert Frost.

 

 

Chloe sprawls across the queen-sized mattress that’s been shoved haphazardly against the wall in the cramped bedroom of their new apartment, dust rising up around her and coating her jeans and bare arms with freckles of white powder. The mattress is bare, plain white and almost hospital-like in its dullness, and Max’s suburban upbringing rears its ugly head in a way it never has before. All of a sudden, she’s filled with an all-consuming need to cover it with one of the sheets they’d bought the day before in Target, laughing over some of the patterns before finally settling on a few soft yellows and blues, and makes for the boxes that are scattered across the living room, but—

Chloe lets out a whine. “Stay,” she mumbles, eyes closed. She’s leaned into the mattress, settling down, head bumping against a slightly cracked white wall, knees bent and streaked white. Max looks again at the cardboard box peeking out from behind the doorway, and imagines the eight others behind it. As if reading her mind, Chloe shifts to the side slightly, pressed up against the wall, and adds, “we can unpack tomorrow.”

Which is true. They could unpack tomorrow, or the day after, or even the day after _that_ if they’re really feeling lazy. Freedom overwhelms Max, fills her with warmth like some homemade mac and cheese after a long day, and she has to fight the urge to let out a giggle. “I suppose we can,” she relents, and Chloe hums in approval, a low noise that presses against her lips and turns higher when she smiles up at Max. And that’s all she needs, the last bit of encouragement before she’s sitting down beside Chloe gingerly, kicking off her sneakers and pulling her feet off the cold floor.

Chloe, for her part, looks exhausted. Her eyes, when she opens them to squint at Max, are ringed with dark circles, and Max knows she doesn’t look much better. She thinks back to long nights spent sorting out contracts, Chloe coming back from her job at the deli down the street smelling of salami at five-thirty every day, eyes burning from staring at spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of budgets that make her head spin. And, oh, it would be so easy to just slide down next to Chloe, let her head rest against her arm, let her eyes close…

A low rumble sounds through the room, and Chloe lets out a laugh. “Oops,” she says, sounding not very apologetic at all. “I guess it kinda just hit me that lunch was six hours ago.”

"Time flies when you’re having— well, I don’t think this counts as _fun_ ,” Max mumbles, casting another glance at the box. “I should probably unpack a bit. Mom gave us some bread and fruits and stuff to start us off, remember?”

But the kitchen is so far away, the few feet suddenly stretching into a mile before her, and she curls up tighter before she even realizes what she’s doing. 

“It’s okay. I’m not exactly _starving_ ,” Chloe points out. There’s a pause, and then: “It sucks that we can’t paint these walls. Blue would look really nice. Or, hm. Black would be pretty badass too.”

Max snorts. “Yeah, even if our landlord wouldn’t kill us, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you turn this into Goth Central.” She looks up, though, squints her eyes against the glare of the light overhead. “Blue… would be pretty, though.”

“We can still get posters, though,” Chloe reminds her. “Paintings too… and photographs, maybe.” 

That last word sits heavy in the air, Max breathing out slowly as she considers it. There’s a roaring in her ears, the sound of the wind whipping through trees and bushes and up the cliffs of Arcadia Bay, rain weighing down her hair and clothes, lightning splitting up the sky above her. She blinks, and she’s staring back up at the slight crack leading off of the lightbulb in the ceiling once more. “Maybe later,” she murmurs. (Can she say it’s still too soon, too raw, when it’s been nearly a year since the storm?)

Chloe nods, though, like she understands. Which she does. She’s the only one who can, the only one who knows what she’s done and what she carries with her every minute of every hour of every day, and that should make her feel alone except it _doesn’t._ Chloe’s fingers wrap around Max’s wrist, the warmth grounding her to their slightly saggy mattress in the corner of their too-tiny bedroom in their dusty apartment. There’s no place she’d rather be. “If not photographs,” she says, “I think a few posters would look nice. My favorite bands and yours— that is, if your lame indie artists are popular enough to _have_ posters.”

Max rolls her eyes. “We both know you have a few Taylor Swift songs on that phone of yours.”

“Fair enough, but I stand by her,” Chloe says defiantly. “And, hm— we could get a rug, and beanbags.”

“Very adult,” Max says. “I like it.” She tilts her head, considers. “A bookshelf, maybe.”

“And a TV for the living room, one of those fancy ones. A girl can dream, right?”

“And a Wii,” Max reminds her. “So I can beat your ass at Super Smash Bros.” Chloe’s disgruntled expression makes her giggle despite herself. “You know what would be _really_ sexy?”

In response, Chloe leans forward, pressing a kiss to Max’s lips. There’s a moment where time seems to freeze, where Max’s heart races in her chest like this is their first kiss all over again, back in Chloe’s bedroom, with the light filtering in just _so_. But this isn’t unfamiliar, and the warmth of kisses stolen before work, of making out long after Max’s parents have gone to bed, fills her stomach as she kisses Chloe back.

When she pulls away, Chloe’s lips, slightly red now, are curved into a devilish smirk. “That,” she says. 

Max smiles. “I was going to say a blender, actually.”

Chloe pouts, and then reconsiders, shaking it off like she’s a wet dog. The action, so typically Chloe, only makes her laugh harder. “You’re right. That _is_ kinda sexy. God, when did we get so domestic?” The Chloe of a year ago, Max knows, would’ve wrinkled her nose at the idea of being anything close to _domestic_. She’s not sure she wouldn’t have either. Now, though— and she can’t speak for Chloe, but the smile on her face is an answer in and of itself— the idea of normalcy is comforting. 

Their normal is this: a small apartment an hour from Max’s parents’ house, all the way in the city, because Chloe likes the lights and the way the world always seems to be humming with car engines and laughter. Chloe’s job making sandwiches, Max’s selling tickets at a cinema. GED textbooks burning a hole in their box. Fake IDs they use to get into clubs, where they dance like teenagers at prom and roll their eyes at the bad electronic music blaring from the speakers. 

Chloe’s eyes flicker open, and they’re close enough that Max can see the little flecks of dust coating her eyelashes and brows. “Goodnight, Max,” she murmurs. 

“Goodnight,” Max says back. Somewhere down on the street below them, a car honks, and a dog growls, and she lets the sound of the city, of Chloe’s steady breathing, in and out and in and out, lull her to sleep. It comes easier than it has in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you wanna talk about Pricefield (or anything else really), you can hit me up on my Tumblr (I'm shellheadtony on there)


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